Donald Trump is sending hundreds of U.S. Marines to assist in Los Angeles in response to the ongoing protests.
The active-duty Marines from Camp Pendleton in Southern California will be deployed to help protect federal agents and buildings, a senior Trump administration official told the Daily Beast.
The Marines’ mobilization comes after U.S. Northern Command had said they were prepared to mobilize Marines on Sunday as needed.
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The move is a dramatic escalation after the president also deployed the National Guard over the objection of California Governor Gavin Newsom and local officials.
“In light of increased threats against federal officers and federal buildings, 500 active-duty U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton will be deployed to Los Angeles to help protect federal agents and buildings,” the official told the Daily Beast.
The U.S. Northern Command announced soon after that approximately 700 Marines with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division would be integrated with the National Guard soldiers deployed in the Los Angeles area.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later took to X to confirm the deployment, adding, “we have an obligation to defend federal law enforcement officers - even if Gavin Newsom will not.”
Newsom weighed in on his X account on Monday night, continuing his personal attacks on Trump while adding news of another deployment, which was later confirmed by Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesman and assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs.
“I was just informed Trump is deploying another 2,000 Guard troops to L.A,” wrote Newsom. “The first 2,000? Given no food or water. Only approx. 300 are deployed — the rest are sitting, unused, in federal buildings without orders. This isn’t about public safety. It’s about stroking a dangerous president’s ego. This is Reckless. Pointless. And disrespectful to our troops.”
The Defense Department’s Rapid Response Unit hit back at Newsom, claiming his comments are a “bald face lie.” “These are soldiers fulfilling duties ordered by the @POTUS and the @SecDef,” the post read.
Earlier on Monday, Trump had defended deploying 2,000 National Guard troops to California in response to immigration protests.
The president argued that he no longer needed a request from the governor because Newsom is “incompetent.”
“Look at the job he’s doing in California. He’s destroying one of our great states,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question during a roundtable event.
The president also suggested that he would back Newsom being arrested, responding to a question from a reporter outside the White House “I would.”
Earlier on Monday, Newsom slammed the president for deploying the National Guard.
“This is exactly what Donald Trump wanted,” he wrote in a post on X. “He flamed the fires and illegally acted to federalize the National Guard.”
The California governor announced the state would sue the president.
“This is a manufactured crisis. He is creating fear and terror to take over a state militia and violate the U.S. Constitution,” Newsom wrote in another post.
He wrote that the president signaling support for his arrest was an “unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”
While the administration confirmed Marines would be mobilized Monday afternoon, the president appeared to play down their deployment.
“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said when asked about deploying Marines. “I think we have it very well under control. I think it would have been a very bad situation. It was heading in the wrong direction. It’s now heading in the right direction.”
Protests have continued in Los Angeles since Friday when law enforcement shot “less-lethal” rounds at protesters who gathered in response to against federal immigration raids.
Nearly 60 people were arrested in Los Angeles over the weekend, police said. Among those arrested were a person accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an officer. Another person was accused of ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers, injuring one.
–Additional reporting by Cameron Adams.
